Chicago Bears: Five things to look watch for in 2017
Will Trubisky see more playing time than expected?
The biggest surprise in the draft was Pace giving up some precious draft picks to move up just one spot to draft Mitch Trubisky. People analyzed that move ad nauseam so including by me so I won’t do it again.
The question here is if newly-minted starter Mike Glennon struggles and backup Mark Sanchez can’t come through, will head coach John Fox put the rookie in and see what he can do?
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The prevailing thought is that the Bears will use 2017 as a red-shirt season for Trubisky. They want him to get acclimated to the NFL-style game and improve on some of the negatives in his game. This is a struggling team, though. For all the glowing reviews on Glennon, his play doesn’t exactly scream out success. For his career, he completed 59 percent of his passes with 15 interceptions to go with his 30 touchdowns and a passer rating of 84.6. Also, and the most important thing for a quarterback, his record is 5-13 as a starter.
Some point out that the team he played for in Tampa wasn’t a very good one. Well, the team he’s playing for now isn’t either. If he couldn’t be the long-term answer for the Buccaneers back then, how will he be one for the Bears today?
Even new Fox Sports analyst Jay Cutler expresses his thought on easing Trubisky in.
"If it’s going downhill, I don’t really see any reason to play the kid. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people calling for his name, because you draft him at No. 2 and draft him for a reason, and that’s to play football and win games. But if you look at a lot of quarterbacks throughout this league, until you’ve got some people around you, some pieces around you, it’s hard to win football games in this league as a quarterback. If it’s going downhill, there’s no way I’m playing him. For what? So he can go out there and take a beating and he can get off to a rough start as an NFL quarterback?"
As Cutler said, if the team struggles, Trubisky’s name will be yelled. Will head coach John Fox relent to pressure and play Trubisky? An argument can be made that if there is nothing to play for, why not put him in? Let him get into games where the pressure isn’t tough on him.
Whatever happens, we will be interested in seeing how the quarterback dynamic works out in 2017.